Yes they do have drivers... any other statements to make?

Oh man, doesn't look like my question was included. Very sorry about that. Luckily I copied it before clicking submit earlier. :)

Hi,

I just formatted and installed Windows XP Media Center Edition onto an HP Pavilion Entertainment PC (laptop). The install went fine, however when I try to go onto the net, I have no connection. I don't have the 'search wireless networks' option, and even plugged direct to the router, I have no connection.

I went to Device Manager and expanded Network Adapter and the only item listed is 1394 Network Adapter. Properties for this say it is installed and working properly.

I've searched through many forums and tried several things but still no luck to get this working.

The motherboard is a Quanta 30B7 ver 65.2C. The laptop itself is a refurb. If anyone can suggest a driver or site to find drivers, and possibly which one I may need, that would be fantastic. Please advise.

Sounds like you are lacking the lan drivers for both the wireless and the ethernet adapter itself too.

Have you tried going to the HP website at this link... you will need the specific model number... and download and install the drivers. There is more than one HP Pavilion Entertainment PC laptop model.

If you don't see Windows MCE specific ones... the Windows XP drivers should be the same.

Click this link

Laptops/Tablets/Netbooks

1394 is NOT a network device, but Firewire.
TBH, unless you have a digital device that uses it, I wouldn't worry about installing it.

Thanks for the replies. I went to the HP site and downloaded/installed the different drivers provided for Windows MCE. I rebooted between installs and still no internet access. I went into command prompt and ran ipconfig /all and I don't even see a MAC address for my NIC. The only response I see is "Windows IP Configuration"... just that line, nothing else. Could I be missing a chipset for them motherboard perhaps?

While you are at the HP site get ALL of the current drivers for your machine.

Do as Curleyben suggests get all of the drivers.

Also go into Bios... make sure your NIC is actually enabled there, same with your WiFi card.

What I was hoping to do was to get the internet capability working for the unit so that I could update all remaining drivers direct to the unit instead of via a USB memory stick. But I'll start that process. I also did notice while in Dev Mgr, that if I select Show Hidden Objects, there are several devices listed under Network Adapter. They all appear to be installed properly and in working order. They are:

1394 Net Adapter
Direct Parallel
WAN Miniport (IP)
WAN Miniport (IP) - Packet Scheduler Miniport
WAN Miniport (L2TP)
WAN Miniport (PPPOE)
WAN Miniport (PPTP)

If you see any yellow tags to the left of anyhing... uninstall those via a right click menu. It should pick up the valid stuff at reboot.


Once you get the NIC working you will have to go in and redirect the network connection via that. It would try to go with whatever connection it finds if it sees no NIC. And that's usually the Firewire port like you see.

Ok, so I downloaded and installed all the drivers from the HP site, rebooting after any that requested it. Good news, bad news situation. I do have access to the internet now from this laptop, however it is only while connected with cat-5 cable. I do not seem to have the ability to search for wireless networks, or enable wireless NIC, etc. any suggestions for that part of the issue?

The driver that seemed to fix it was SP33411 and was Nvidia drivers, which included ethernet drivers.

Did you verify the wireless adapter is enabled in Bios yet? If its disabled the O/S will never see it. And its an easy one to miss.

I had gone into the BIOS but I hadn't actually seen an option for NIC card, wireless or otherwise. I'll try again to make sure I just didn't miss it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sucosam

I had gone into the BIOS but I hadn't actually seen an option for NIC card, wireless or otherwise. I'll try again to make sure I just didn't miss it.

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On a Dell Laptop it actually has its own category for wireless, which is the very last category which includes Cellular and Bluetooth as well as WiFi. The actual Modem is elsewhere in the Bios. I know yours is an HP... but I don't have one of those to give a more direct answer.

FYI, I have the BIOS up now and there are only 5 menu options along the top. It's a PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility. The menu options are: Main, Security, System Configuration, Diagnostics, Exit

None of these have a section or line that refer to network or ethernet or anything that resembles networking config.

It will be under system Configuration That's where EVERYTHING (hardware related anyway) will be configured. Might be under main if its not in the other.

You will have to go through all the options there... wish I could be more specific but without a copy of it in front of me I can't.

I've looked through every menu and submenu option in the BIOS but I just don't see it. Under system config I see the following:

Language
Button Sound
VRAM size
Virtualization Technology
Boot Option -> which has a submenu.

Under boot options there is:

F10 and F12 Delay (sec)
CD-ROM Boot
Floppy Boot
Internal Network Adapter Boot (This was Disabled, but I enabled and saved changes. The description reads "Enable/Disable internal network adapter boot during boot time.") This has something to do with booting the device from another network device I believe and did not provide me with Wireless network options.

Under Main there is :

System Time
System Date
Notebook Model
System Board ID
Processor Type
Processor Speed
Total Memory
BIOS Version
Serial Number
UUID Number
Factory installed OS (which was Vista, but I reinstalled XP of course)

Hmmmmm. You are right about what network boot means... as a home user you won't need or want that.

I wish someone running that bios will see this thread... because I know it has to be there someplace. Every PC computer I have ever worked on you have had the means to change Serial ports... disable nealy any subsystem on it, like modems, lan, onboard video, onboard sound... etc. And that's every single one. We have to be overlooking something someplace, somehow.

I haven't had or worked on a PC with Phoenix bios in a lot of years.

It could be simple. HP's have either a touch surface to enable wireless or a button. If you have a light indicating wireless and it is orange it means that your wireless is off... it should be blue. To turn it on you can either touch the orange light or find a wireless button on the laptop somewhere.

Also something else to consider with HP's. They have a BIOS setting to enable wireless only when wired is unplugged. If your RJ45 cable is plugged and that feature is enabled in the BIOS then it will disable wireless. You can either disable that feature in the BIOS (I don't recommend it) or just unplug your wired side to be able to use wireless.

Good luck.

I had tried the wireless enable switch on the front of the laptop. The light is currently orange, but whether it's in the right or left position, it remains orange. Also, the wired cable has not been plugged in for any of these tests, but rather it was just plugged in initially to see if internet access was possible.

I've gone through every menu and submenu in the BIOS and there does not appear to be any option to enable wireless adapter or ports. I should advise that when I go into Network Connections that I see LAN, but have no option for Wireless.